Upon Further Reflection

Ahhhh... Well, this is my first post back after taking a month to recharge and rejuvenate the ol' gray matter between my temples. It's been a wild ride the last few years, working in product distribution, with reduced staff, and contending with all of life's other issues. I really did need to step down from the bucking bronco for a moment! Ha ha! I'm easing back into things with a photo essay featuring performers captured looking into or alongside a mirror. (Get the analogy about reflection? Well... it's not really THAT deep. I just thought it would be an eye-catching little collection to look over.) In this situation, we can sometimes see the person the subjects see when they look at themselves rather than the image of them we see on screen. Though, needless to say, those in movies and on TV certainly glimpsed their un-reflected selves more than most of the rest of us ever did (something that has changed, I suppose, with the advent of endless selfies! Ever notice how some of those folks are strangely reluctant to flip the picture to what actually exists? It's an interesting bit of psychology.) By the way, do you know that I've only seen two movies in my life with our cover boy Macauley Culkin in them?! (Only the Lonely, 1991, and The Good Son, 1993. Yes, I've never been exposed to any Home Alone film...) The remaining participants in this post are mostly folks more up my alley. Now let's turn up the house lights and see who's out there. 

Oh, Mary... Mary Pickford, that is, doing a touch up during 1933's Secrets.

La Liz... Elizabeth Taylor ensures that her coiffure is all set and ready to go.

Miss Jane Russell puts the finishing touches on her look prior to stepping before the camera. Note the "No Smoking" sign in the background. I wonder how many people adhered to that...!

Anne Francis makes certain everything is in ship-shape.

Curvaceous Diana Dors checks out the goods.

Jane Greer models a costume/gown that would not have passed muster on screen at the time this photo was snapped...! Today's "stars" are practically nude on the red carpet, but this look is incredibly racy for its time.

Anne Baxter straightens a cute li'l hat before venturing out.

Meanwhile, the divine Marsha Hunt ensures that her collar is picture-perfect. The remarkable Ms. Hunt passed away in September of 2022 at age 104 (!) and is proof that one can rise above undeserved mistreatment and make life meaningful nonetheless. If you ever get the chance, do watch the 2015 documentary Marsha Hunt's Sweet Adversity, which relays her captivating life (note the cute hubby in a snapshot on her mirror.)

Heiress-turned-model-turned-actress-turned-designer Gloria Vanderbilt prepares for her venture onto the stage in The Swan at Pocono Playhouse. Later, she'd spend several days on Broadway (with Franchot Tone, John Carradine, Doris Roberts and others) in The Time of Your Life.

"Just tease it and make it look like a brown football helmet." Sophia Loren rocks the look regardless (during the dire A Countess from Hong Kong, 1967?)

We're doin' our Jane Fonda, snapped behind the scenes of 1962's The Chapman Report.

Now this is a star! Julie Andrews during the filming of Star! (1968.)

This is a remarkably understated look for Miss Raquel Welch. We're not used to seeing such simple clothing and hair on her during the 1960s.

Likewise, this shot of one Marilyn Monroe is far less polished and glitzy than she would soon become. We're now heading into more deliberately posed/arty shots, versus the more candid ones we've viewed thus far.

There's scarcely a square inch left unexposed in this portrait of luminous Carole Lombard, though she can stand up to any scrutiny. (In truth, she did have a substantial scar from a 1927 car accident, which was partially repaired with surgery and carefully made up and lit thereafter.)

A pensive Ava Garder reflects on a situation of some sort (or might just be wondering when she'll be free to go home!)

Lana Turner is giving it her all in this shot.

We've featured this one of Eleanor Parker here before, but it's too in line with today's theme to omit.

Mona Freeman giving face.

Eva Marie Saint offers profile in the reflection as she looks off (not necessarily in a north by northwest direction. Ha!)

In Rome Adventure (1962), Angie Dickinson knows just what she's got and how to use it to her best advantage.

The ever-amazing Miss Joan Collins at the height of the early-1960s lacquered phase. Note how the angle of the reflection can present a completely different sort of expression. Something to note when basing an opinion on a single photo. We're multifaceted people after all.

Faye Dunaway during the production of her own favorite film role, Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970), in which she played a troubled fashion model.

Miss Diahann Carroll isn't about to make do with merely one mirror.

Whole posts could be made up from our next two participants of nothing but them looking into or posing beside a mirror. Perhaps I ought to have done that! But, anyway, here we have Bette Davis in her early years, up against a detailed mirror.

Decades later she had graduated to a personalized one! (During Dead Ringer, 1964?)

Joan Crawford fully embraced the art of publicity portrait sitting and does so with joy here during Forsaking All Others (1934.) Note, again, how the same pose can achieve two different types of expression thanks to the mirror.

Decades later, Miss C was a willing subject for the insightful camera lens of photographer Eve Arnold.

A shot, also carefully planned in a vein similar to the prior one, features Natalie Wood. Wood had very specific ideas about how her makeup should be applied and was extremely attentive to its details in application. (You'll find that many actresses who have perfected a certain look they prefer - and which they feel brings forth their very best attributes - do their OWN makeup rather than sit while someone else takes care of it.)

Gena Rowlands takes this multiple-type mirror thing to its pinnacle in Opening Night (1977.)

Sharon Tate, seen here on her wedding day to Roman Polanski, created her own eye makeup technique, which was vigorously copied by many a 1960s gal thereafter.

Sometimes a single full-length mirror simply won't do! Of course, this is from a famous movie sequence: Miss Rita Hayworth in The Lady From Shanghai (1947.)

Likewise, Lauren Bacall appreciates the benefit of multiple mirrors in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953.)

And surely you didn't think I'd forget Nancy Kwan and her magic mirrors from Flower Drum Song (1961), did you?

Guys like a glance in the ol' mirror, too, you know... Here Steve McQueen sizes up a suit jacket (for The Thomas Crown Affair, 1968?)

I take it this dressing room of Sammy Davis Jr's didn't have a "No Smoking" sign like Jane Russell's!

Elvis Presley finds a new way to wait for the elevator, much to the hotel's cleaning crew's dismay...

Marlon Brando utilizes his mirror in order to get his tie straightened out.

Muhammad Ali tries out some of his patented boxing moves in a (filthy, sweat-stained-? mirror.) Hope he didn't mislay any equipment in that changing room. 

Sidney Poitier offers up twice the smile on Oscar Night, 1964.

Sean Connery surveys some of the damage he's caused in 1966's A Fine Madness.

The boys could get arty, too. Here we find Tyrone Power. You'll note he's not looking at himself in the reflection, but rather into the camera's lens.

Gary Cooper prepares for a portrait.

Better mirror moments came from Coop when he took a shave in The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935.)

Frank Sinatra clears away 5 o'clock shadow prior to an engagement.

Paul Newman sees to his beard (Ha ha! No, not Joanne Woodward) in this candid photo.

Young Rock Hudson has his morning shave. We have to assume this is in a hotel considering that bar of soap and tiny dish for it...!

Kirk Douglas shaves his puss in this shot. A) I have always wondered what sort of ordeal it must have been to accurately shave that famous cleft in his chin. B) I think we can all be grateful that the Covid-19 vaccine didn't scar the recipient that way his smallpox vaccine has, as shown up close here...!

I'm sorry, but I couldn't resist the visual shift from Kirk Douglas to David "The Hoffmeister" Hasselhoff in these similarly situated set-ups! But, Sweet Jesus, how old was that bathroom?! Knight Rider was an early-1980s show and that shower door looks like the late-1950s/early-1960s.

I'm with Elizabeth on this one! Ha ha!

I don't care if he's posing with it or looking in it or not. This is my beloved Clint Walker of Cheyenne and there is a mirror present...

I mean, can ya blame me?? #myblogmyrules

As Dennis Cole would say, this is The End!

We Interrupt This Program...

Hello, my loves. If you come here regularly, you can clearly see that I haven't posted a thing for a couple of weeks, which is not my typical approach to Poseidon's Underworld. Nothing in particular is "wrong." I just had the misfortune of experiencing a perfect storm of significant work overload, social & family obligations, a minor - and thankfully over with - illness and a general lack of ability to create anything! Maybe all the posts I managed to hammer out in October depleted me a bit. Who knows. After all, I've been doing this for 13 years straight and have penned over 900 lengthy posts. The bad news is that I am not going to be putting anything up for the remainder of November as I recharge the old batteries. The good news is that I'm not giving up. I have every intention of being back in the swing of things with more vintage TV & movie shenanigans in December. Thanks for your continued support. I will be back asap!

Guest Who: Suddenly Songbird?

One of the previously unseen TV shows that I watched during the Covid-19 lock-down was Thriller, a British anthology typically featuring some sort of mystery and/or mayhem. It ran from 1973-1976. As the run developed, an effort was made to include an American name or two within each installment, the idea being that there could be better chances at re-run success in the States if familiar faces were included. This could sometimes be a little clunky story-wise (explaining why a "yank" was in the mix), but the show did indeed air in U.S. syndication. I just somehow missed it. It was fun discovering these eps, especially when one featured an utterly unexpected guest appearance. Take this one, for instance...

A world-famous opera singer is in the midst of a tour and has currently landed in London. We're always all-in whenever a hairdo like this is at play. But who is this songbird? (The episode's proper title is "Nightmare for a Nightingale.")

Fellow guest Stuart Damon (of the 1965 Cinderella and decades on General Hospital) watches the lady ply her trade.

"New York is where I'd raaather stay...!" (I'm kidding. It's not Eva Gabor...)

All sorts of folks want to toast her performances... But who's the singer? Would you believe...

Susan Flannery!?

The Golden Globe winner for New Star of the Year - Actress of 1975 is the Special Guest Star. Flannery had been on TV for well over a decade before being crowned "New" Star of the Year.

After guesting on Burke's Law, Death Valley Days and Ben Casey, she landed on Days of Our Lives in the key role of Laura Horton. She spent a decade there, winning a Daytime Emmy in 1975, the same year as her Golden Globe. The reason for her Golden Globe was a featured part as the doomed secretary Lorri in the mega-hit The Towering Inferno (1974.) Her association with producer Irwin Allen, on whose shows Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and The Time Tunnel she'd been a guest, had aided her in winning that part.

Some of the patented loving looks and smooching she gave boss Robert Wagner in Inferno can be detected here in her relationship with Damon.

She also finds herself having to contend with stage actor and fellow guest star Keith Baxter. You may have seen him in Ash Wednesday (1973) with Elizabeth Taylor. (He'd been cast as Octavian in her Cleopatra (1963) and filmed much of his role before her lingering illness shut the movie down and many of the parts had to be recast due to timing.)

Flannery goes through a variety of personal turmoils in the show, often draped in chiffon and with her hair piled high as seen here. It's a very unaccustomed look for the actress who mostly wore shorter, simpler looks.

And she does, in fact, return to her freer, lighter locks at other points in the episode.

Naturally at bedtime (in this atrocious confection) she opts for the easy look.

Still, we prefer the stiff, big, intricate way. LOL

Also check out these eyelashes! She had the big-time peepers to pull the look off, but I must say they are ginorous when you really begin to look them over.

But a gal need a little help when belting out an aria on stage.

This was but one year before Damon would create his iconic daytime role of the devious Dr. Alan Quartermaine on General Hospital. He was nominated for seven Daytime Emmys, winning once.

It was fun to see these two soap opera stalwarts work together on Thriller.

Flannery later made a triumphant return to daytime TV as the matriarch Stephanie Forrester on The Bold and the Beautiful. She was nominated nine times for the Emmy, winning three. She worked on the show from 1987-2012. (On-screen hubby John McCook remains on the show even now! A recent story line had him grappling with ED.....)

In real life, Flannery had little interest in long (or big!) hair as she grew older and kept a close-cropped style. She wore wigs for a while as Stephanie, but eventually abandoned those for her own short, silver strands. During her time on Bold, she developed into a skilled director as well, but since departing the screen a decade ago, she now lives out of the limelight and is currently 83. As you may or may not be aware, she was the lover of Fannie Flagg for a while, cohabiting for eight years in the late-'60s and early-'70s.

It's been suggested that her sexuality hampered her standing with some producers & directors back in the 1970s and that is why all that promise withered on the vine and she was soon back on TV. In any case, I don't know of any case in which she phoned in a performance. She was committed and charismatic in everything I ever saw her in. (And, to this day, I keep a VHS tape of her on Bold, going at it with gusto against one of her enemies.)

This episode of Thriller, with all the chiffon, polyester, Aqua Net and eyelashes one can handle, may be seen here, free with limited ads on Tubi. Other eps are there, too, with everyone from Donna Mills to Bradford Dillman to Gary Collins to Carol Lynley (and a fascinating one with Helen Mirren), among others!